It Looks Cramped In There

Today was the big ultrasound - the one where we could find out the gender of the baby. Typically, getting to the hospital we found that they didn't have the necessary paperwork to make sure that my insurance paid for the procedure. Thirty minutes (and a very unhealthy mom-to-be irrtation later) we were seen by the doctor. The doctor spent quite a lot of time checking the growing creature in my body and though I couldn't really make out said feet or legs, assured us that they were there.
The baby was clearly growing from our earlier visits, even just of 13 days ago, but my husband was not impressed by my carrying capabilities.

"It looks cramped in there," he said, as though he weren't the same man laughing at the growing rotundness of my body.

Then came the moment I had been dreading: "100% it's a boy," the doctor said. I had braced myself for this over the past two weeks ever since my husband said I went almost white with shock when my OBGYN suggested there were the signs of male antatomy in our last sonogram.

"I saw the look on your face," he said, "you were disappointed." Being confronted with the fact that I could be disappointed in a child even before was born was a sobering thought given all the pressure my parents placed on me not to get pregnant, hooked or drugs, or drop out of school. I did not ever think I would be that kind of mother. But then I didn't really think about having a son.

I find myself participating in a kind of strange reverse sexism: I'm not a man hater but because of the tension my mother and lots of other women like her went through to have boys, I resist the idea of a male child, an heir, the eldest, as though I've betrayed all my feminist teaching or beliefs. There are only girls in my family: my sister had three girls, my mother two, all of our cousins but two boys (one of them my brother) are girls. I never once entertained the idea that this truly could be 50/50 male/female.

My father-in-law's glee at the news - he was the first person we called when leaving the hospital - was predictable and sweet. "You are lucky," he said but he didn't mean it in a malicious way.

I was sad for the girl that I won't get to build up or listen to or empower. But the other morning, the morning after the first possibility of a boy was raised, I saw my three year old neighbor riding his bike in the driveway. This child is so sweet and good looking, you would lock him up so someone wouldn't take him. When I saw him, my heart just clenched and I sent my husband a text.

Okay, if he looks like him, okay.

The truth is you'll love whoever you have or at least that's what I've been led to believe. We'll see.

But life does love to throw you surprises. The easy pregnancy thus far was one welcome one. The news of a boy, the second.

The (Dreaded) Growing "bump"

It's a new thing this idea of 'the bump' and showing it off. Perhaps we have the Hollywood moms to thank for this advent of pregnancy into the public space - that and the tendy clothes a la Catherine Zeta-Jones signing at the Oscars in her 9th month, maternal breasts about to pop out of her evening gown - not that Hollywood does much for us after delivery. Then they become the antithesis to the average mother with their personal chefs and trainers. But as I've been telling myself for the last few weeks, I'm not thinking about AFTER yet. Just the now.

And now, in month five, is when everyone is clamoring for the bump. I put a photo on Facebook last week just to pacify people (including my brother) who want to see this transformation. I wish I could say it was all rosy cheeks and glowing eyes but really it's shirts that don't fit and pants that don't zip up. Not thrilling in the least.

The advent of the bump on your body is reminder though; as it grows literally you're forced to reckon with this thing that is about to happen to you. When it's small, during the first three months you don't have to really face the ways your life is changing. Particularly if you aren't sick, as I wasn't, it's easy to pretend nothing has changed.

This is a dangerous trap, particularly at work, because people just push for more and as they did before. Now that I'm in the second trimester, staying up until 11pm is again possible. Having the sense to take a breath before putting someone on full blast for idiocy, is not. I have to train myself for pregnancy brain: For the forgetting (which I thought stemmed from vomitting or lack of sleep but can just start for no reason other than your resources are being used elsewhere), for the lack of patience, for the utter lack of urgency which has never affected me before in my life.

I've become that thing I don't understand: a procrastionator. On Saturday I didn't change out of my nightgown until 2pm. For no reason other than I really liked the book I was reading.

Other changes, besides those on my body, are happening as well. My husband, who never once answered the phone when I called 6 different times during the course of a day that I had been involved in a car accident, now drives over to the office if he can't get ahold of me. He gives footrubs on a daily instead of intermittent basis. He pokes me in the neck if I'm sleeping on my stomach; he tells on me to the doctor if I'm not doing something I should (like remember to take the vitamins).

All of these small things are nothing compared to what is to come I know. I'm so glad that nature gives us this time to prepare.

You, Your Baby, and Your Parents

Nowadays people spend so much time thinking about the genetic legacy we give to our children as parents or grandparents. What I've been contemplating as equally dark are the financial, spiritual, and emotional legacies our children inherit from us whether we want them to or not.

When I was growing up it was not in a Leave it to Beaver middle class home. Because I had educated South Asian parents, a father with a PhD, I often had to pretend this was the case. Living in a suburb of north Florida also didn't help matters as most people were upper middle class in our social circle - the whites and the South Asians. I lived a double life that became increasingly difficult to manage through high school. When college came, I moved several states away and lived in a dorm. This was a great equalizer because no one knew about the apartment I shared with my parents. My entire past was erased and I could start again.

These emotional challenges of growing up poor did not mean I had it as bad as others; I always had something to eat and clothes to wear - even if I didn't particularly care for the selection of either. Though I was surrounded by books, they were those of the library's not ours, and watched movies, they were the ones on T.V. not in the movie theater. Certainly people had/have it worse than I did.

But this is why I can't think about cooing over or coddling an infant. Because the facts remain: my father never saw any of his three children born and my parents were disappointed I wasn't a boy (relieved when my brother came long four years later). Since nothing but blood kept the bond in our family when I was growing up, it took a faith perspective to instill in me any sense of belongingnesss as an adult.

I forgive my parents because as I know now, you can only do the best you can.

I still can't shake the facts. My parents didn't feel that 'oh-you're-mine' rush when we were little; that didn't make their faces light up with joy or pleasure.

So what makes people think it will for me?

When I Sit Down for a Length of Time

Strangely, it hurts. I think this child may have already bruised my tailbone with it's increasing presence in the home that is my uterus.

But getting rounder means the news is readily shared - which has another nice side effect - excuses people can't dodge or really dispute.

As in, even though it's 9 p.m., I'm going to bed.

And even though it's the middle of the day, I will yell at someone who is being stupid.

Opps... and even though I didn't really, I'll say I forgot to uncheck the forward box because of my diminished brain.

For the next five months I expect to get as much mileage as I can out of the current situation. In return, my stomach is bulging and my breasts are the size of watermelons. Fair enough I say.